Truck Cranes Getting a Facelift

There has been a slew of new truck crane launches in recent months with more advanced safety and technical features for higher productivity and more reliability. NBM&CW reports.

Demand for truck cranes is being spurred by modernization and expansion in industrial and core infrastructure projects, including refineries, roads and bridges and so on. With a view to the current scenario of time-bound projects, tightening of finance, demand for safety and high productivity, manufacturers are introducing better equipped products with technically advanced features and positioning them more aggressively in the marketplace.

Says Sanjay Saxena- Sr. VP & Business Unit Head-Heavy Equipment Sany Heavy Industry India, “We have upgraded our 25 ton and 50-ton truck cranes, 25 T Crane was earlier mounted on commercial chassis. Our brand-new offering is the STC 500 C, 50-ton truck crane which can be used for heavier and versatile applications in power plants, roads, metro projects etc. We have also modernized our 25-ton truck crane (STC 250 C) for better control and stability and travel with our own designed dedicated chassis, and have increased the load lifting capacity with improved low height design equipped with longer boom length to 33.5 meters for higher reach applications. This has also been done through the new U-shaped stronger, lighter, higher tensile steel boom.”

STC 250 C comes with a four-section telescopic boom with basic boom length of 10.55 meters, fully extended boom length of 33.5 meters, with jib optional length of 8 meters. This model has top rated capacity of 25 tons at 10.55-meter boom length at 3.00 meters working radius. STC 500C comes with a five-section telescopic boom with basic boom length of 11.3 meters with fully extended boom length of 44 meters. This model has top rated capacity of 50 tons 11.3 meters boom length at 3 meters working radius. Standard safety features of the new crane include an emergency stop button, load moment indicator for automatically detecting load weight, work radius and boom angle, over hoist protection of the main, and an auxiliary load hoist.

Anil Bhatia, VP Sales & Marketing, TIL Limited, informs, “We have been manufacturing cranes in technical collaboration with Grove USA since 1994. Our Truck Cranes range varies from 30 Ton to 80 Ton capacity. They are of advanced design, robust and reliable, and fitted with components of reputed makes such as transmission systems from ZF and axles from Meritor. We are offering them with Ashok Leyland engines, while the higher capacity 80-ton cranes are powered by Volvo Penta engines. These fuel-efficient engines help deliver the lowest cost of operation in the industry. The higher capacity machines are fitted with U-shaped booms made of high tensile steel. The new booms have reduced weight, enabling higher lifting capacity, and delivering higher power to weight ratio.

Manoj Agarwal, CGM-Marketing & Product Support, ACE Ltd.

Targeting the growing truck cranes market, Indian construction equipment heavyweight, Action Construction Equipment (ACE) has introduced its new higher capacity truck-mounted cranes TM450, 45 tons and TM550, 55 tons. Sharing details, Manoj Agarwal, CGM-Marketing & Product Support, ACE Ltd., says, “The cranes comes with our own dedicated chassis instead of the commercial chassis manufactured by truck manufacturers. This will lead to improved stability of the machine by shifting the centre of gravity lower and also reducing the overall height of the machine. Use of double axles on the front and rear will help in improving the overall distribution of the weight, thus making the operation smooth and jerk-free. The outrigger span has been increased horizontally so that the machine can lift the desired load with ease. We have provided two modes in the engine wherein we can use the machine in the normal mode and also in the fuel saver mode to reduce fuel consumption and improve overall efficiency of the machine.”

He elaborates, “We have designed the boom in-house based on our engineering expertise. We have used boom assembly with 4 sections and 5 sections, made of high strength steel with optimized shape to drastically reduce its weight while enhancing the lifting capability of the machine. Integration of best-in-class driveline along with top-notch hydraulics and in-house designed structures with a high safety factor in boom assembly will make our cranes competitively strong.”

ACE’s offerings of truck cranes include 25T, 30T, 45T and 55T fitted with the company’s dedicated chassis. We will soon launch the cranes in 60T and 80T capacity on a dedicated chassis, thus becoming one stop solution provider for more than 80% of the Truck crane applications in India.

The truck crane manufacturers are developing competitive products, backed by aggressive marketing strategies to increase the sales. However, offering product support to their customers will help consolidate the gains in the highly competitive business scenario.

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